Ten Things: Guardian of the Galaxy

Hey, remember when going to the movies in the summer was supposed to be fun?  Well, Marvel sure does, and they've decided to take the rest of us along for the ride with Guardians of the Galaxy.  It's actually quite remarkable what Marvel Studios has accomplished here; they've taken one of the most obscure and bizarre hero teams in the Marvel Universe and turned it into one of the best Marvel movies since The Avengers.  Heck, I'm ready to see it again right now, which I haven't done since Pacific Rim.  If you haven't seen it yet, drop what you're doing and go now.

If you have seen it, stick around and see ten things I didn't like about my favorite movie of the year so far:

I Love It, But It Sucks: Legend of the Guardians

So The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug has come and gone, and I've had a good month or so to collect my thoughts on the matter.  Unfortunately, my thoughts on DoS so closely mirror my thoughts on the previous installment that going over them again would feel redundant.  In a nutshell, DoS is bloated and poorly paced, with a climax that so thoroughly breaks the film that it merits its own analysis once it comes out on Blu-ray.

However, if the Hobbit films have taught us anything over the last two years, it is to appreciate brevity and a solid pace when we can find it in the age Epic Cinema.  Yet brevity can lead to failure just as easily as bloat, as evidenced by 2010's Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

Ten Things: Saving Mr. Banks

I've had reservations about Saving Mr. Banks, Disney's retelling of the creation of Mary Poppins, ever since I first saw the trailer.  Mary Poppins is easily one of my all-time favorite movies, as anyone who knows me can attest.  While I may consider Mary Poppins to be an absolute masterpiece of family entertainment, there was one prominent person who disagreed: Marry Poppins author P. L. Travers.  Tim over at Antagony & Ecstasy has discussed the tumultuous relationship between Travers and the screen adaptation of her work on multiple occasions with more knowledge and detail than I could hope to, but suffice to say that she despised the finished product.  With that in mind, the idea of Disney making a film about Mary Poppins' production struck me as blatant historical revisionism.  And make no mistake, Saving Mr. Banks truly is historical revisionism--but damned if it isn't some well-made historical revisionism.  The film is well-acted and even quite moving in places, so if you're interested, check it out.

Now here's Ten Things that really bugged me: